Mon 11 Mar 2013

On Movement and Witchcraft

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Pigeon Creek board member and repertory company actor Kate Bode (Second Witch, Lady Macduff, Gentlewoman, Seward) discusses the physical side of playing non-human characters.

I was very excited to begin exploring the witch characters of Macbeth. After all, they are some of the most famous of Shakespeare’s characters.

As I started my process of trying to create a character, however, it dawned on me that they are some of the most famous of Shakespeare’s characters. This suddenly became a very intimidating thought. Everyone knows about the witches. Everyone has some preconceived notion of what they should be. How can an actor live up to that? But then I thought: I don’t.

It is my job to create this character anew, and share it with the audience.

For me, the biggest struggle is the physical creation of a character: how they walk, how they move, their mannerisms, their habits, etc. My friends all know how much of a klutz I am, and my movement is sometimes hindered by chronic knee pain. So, for me, movement becomes an even bigger challenge when working with a non-human character.

But I found that I can use these weaknesses to my advantage. Because the witches are non-human, my awkward movements and lack of grace can actually help me to distinguish my character’s movement qualities from those of the other (human) characters in the play. Strange, angular movements that look so clumsy and so pitiful in the real world, seem fantastical, “weird,” and completely appropriate in the world of Macbeth.

I also found myself defaulting to the movement qualities I worked so hard on for the character of Ariel in The Tempest – the non-human spirit that is a servant to Prospero. At one point, one of my fellow actors pointed this out to me, and I realized that, while that movement quality worked for Ariel, it does not work for the witches. I had to deconstruct that movement and use bits and pieces of it to build a new, and more appropriate, character for an altogether different kind of world, and discard the things that didn’t work.

In the end, I hope that the movement and character that I have created for my witch will be both new and familiar, and that the audience will enjoy the hard work and effort of my clumsy, awkward self.

 

Mon 11 Mar 2013

In My Mind’s Eye #10

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Pigeon Creek newcomer Dynasty (Third Witch, Donalbain, Menteith, Second Murderer) talks about her experience rehearsing Macbeth.

1. How do you typically go about preparing a Shakespearean character?
When first starting to prepare for a Shakespearean character I make sure I have a full and clear understanding of the play itself. By understanding the play’s intent I am then able to understand the intent of both my character and other characters as well. I find that this helps to create a smooth and clear message to both the other actors in the scene and audience members, painting a better picture of what’s going on scene by scene. After getting the broader picture I try to fine tune it buy assessing each one of my character’s lines as well as going over scansion and pronunciation. Another thing I like to do with pieces by Shakespeare is to go over each word breaking down consonant and vowel make sure that they are highlighted throughout my speech so that audience members can clearly hear each word that is spoken.

What I find to be the most influential in character development, whether it be a Shakespearean character or any other, is to really do my best to embody the character I am playing; meaning behave, move, and have the energy level and needs that particular character would have.

2. What do you find to be the most helpful part of PCSC’s standard rehearsal process?
This is actually my first time working with Pigeon Creek Shakespeare Company and I find that most helpful throughout the rehearsal process is the feedback that you get from all of the other actors. we are all directors as well as actors within the production. I find it helpful that the same person I’m out there acting with is also collaborating on the direction of the scene. I feel like this method helps to bring all the actors on to the same page at a quicker pace.
 We also collaborate on talking about the scenes together and discussing the intent as a whole and that really helps to know that everyone is understanding the material as a whole 

3. What do you like to do for fun outside of theatre?
This question has always been a struggle for me to answer. I feel like there’s not enough time in a lifetime to do all of the things I like to do. With that being said, I probably like to do to many things so I guess I will just list a couple of my favorite things. I love to travel places I’ve never been, hike, camp, fish, dance, play the guitar, sing, shop, have game nights, and be lazy.

4. What is your day job? What do you want to be your day job?
Well I don’t have a day job per se I have a night job. I work at an adult foster home for developmentally and mentally disabled women. it is quite challenging and often fun but ultimately I want to be a psychiatrist working with the mentally ill.

5. What theatre plans do you have in the next couple months?
Acting wise I’m always an open book and ready for anything that comes up. Sometimes I have to work on pacing myself and not doing too many things at one time. As of now I have a couple film projects in my future. And nothing planned so far within the theatre but I am excited for what may come. I have been away from the acting world for a while and I am more than ready to dive right in!

 

Fri 28 Sep 2012

In My Mind’s Eye #9

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This summer, PCSC has started a new means of gathering the inside scoop of our actors in their processes. In addition to the normal blog entries you read on here, there will also be a series of questions posed to our actors. Enjoy.

This week: Repertory Company Member, Kat Hermes

*****

1. How do you typically go about preparing a Shakespearean character?

I start with the basics; looking at the way the character uses text, at what the character says about themself and what the other characters say about them.

Then I start to physicalize what I now know about the character. What works best for me is playing with images, sometimes drawn from the real world and sometimes from pop culture. I usually end up with two or three distinct images and build the physical character using parts of each. For example, my most recent role with Pigeon Creek, Don Armado in Love’s Labour’s Lost, was part Antonio Banderas, part Captain Jack Sparrow and part a guy I went to graduate school with. For Titania in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the character I’m currently preparing, I’m looking at a lot of images of magical women in fantasy, such as Galadriel from The Lord of the Rings and Maleficent from Disney’s Sleeping Beauty.

2. What do you find to be the most helpful part of PCSC’s standard rehearsal process?

Typically the first time we run through the entire show we do what’s called a “Ren Run” (short for Renaissance Run), where we put the show on its feet as though we were performing for an audience, regardless of how polished the staging is for each individual scene. This gives us a chance to get an early sense of the feel of the show as a whole, without stopping and starting, and allows us to test how well each of us really knows the story the we’re telling. I always make interesting discoveries during the “Ren Run”. While working Romeo and Juliet this spring, the “Ren Run” was the first time it really hit home how little time Romeo and I spent onstage together. Sean Kelley (who played Romeo) and I rarely even saw each other backstage, and I found that as the run went on I started to miss “checking in” with him. We only had two little moments together between scenes (after the balcony scene and before we enter together after our wedding night), so pretty much everything that we needed to communicate to each other, both as actors and characters, had to happen onstage. That sense of intimacy and urgency in the face of distance was part of Romeo and Juliet’s relationship that I had thought about how to convey, but when we put the show together I realized that Shakespeare had already done that work for me, that I didn’t have to “act” it, just let it happen.

3. What do you like to do for fun outside of theatre?

I read a lot. I watch a lot of Netflix. I sleep.

4. What is your day job? What do you want to be your day job?

I work full time as an assistant teacher at a daycare and accredited preschool, with ages ranging from infant to school-aged. Though I love teaching and working with kids and will probably always do so in some capacity, I’d like acting and costume design to be my day jobs, eventually.

5. What theatre plans do you have in the next couple months?

In addition to my work with Pigeon Creek, I’m also a board member of Dog Story Theater in downtown Grand Rapids, so you’ll be able to find me there most weekends working the box office. I’m also thinking of venturing into non-Shakespearean theater with a close and talented friend of mine, but those plans are still too vague for a formal announcement.

 

Sat 22 Sep 2012

In My Mind’s Eye #8

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This summer, PCSC has started a new means of gathering the inside scoop of our actors in their processes. In addition to the normal blog entries you read on here, there will also be a series of questions posed to our actors. Enjoy.

This week: Repertory Company Member, Scott Wright
*****

1. How do you typically go about preparing a Shakespearean character?

The first step is most often just carefully reading the play – more than once – sometimes well before the first rehearsal…! The text usually has everything you need to know about a character, and Shakespeare almost always gives you plenty of details. What a character says reveals much about him but there is much more detail available – usually in the things other characters say – or don’t say – about your character, maybe in the stage directions, or sometimes in what the character says about himself. So while you’re going through the text in those first read-thrus and early rehearsals you have to pay attention to those character details, who says them, how and why they say it.

Some roles are very well known, famous characters and much has been said and written about them. Scholarly analysis is sometimes less useful than the work of other actors and directors, but it’s always informative.

Some roles are historical characters whose lives and activities are a matter of record. A little digging can glean a great many details about who someone truly was – though Shakespeare was more often interested in drama than history…

Whether a character speaks in verse or prose is a very important clue to a character’s social status and/or emotional state. Sometimes dialects or accents are written into the script giving excellent and sometimes very funny clues to a character’s class or attitudes. But then there are characters about whom very little is said or offered by the playwright. What those characters say and the situations they are placed in is about all you get and you get to fill in lots of details yourself.

We ask ourselves questions about the character – “What is the character doing (feeling, etc.)?” and “What does the character want?” and use the other tools available to us as actors. The answers to those questions give us actions to play that will bring our characters to life.

The other players, as they work through building their characters, give you feedback and active/motive stuff that helps you discover more about your character and how much or they “want.”

Eventually though, you have to get on your feet and try some things out – try it on and see how it feels. Pigeon Creek favorite Heather Hartnett has described the process as a little like making a coat – cutting it out, sewing it, adjusting when it doesn’t fit the first time, trying it again, & etc. I think that’s a great metaphor, but even more than just trying on different hats or masks, I find that part of what we try out are the strong feelings and larger-than-life actions that are often part of our characters’ realities. Those actions & emotions aren’t always familiar or comfortable for me the actor. Once I put the script down and start putting together a sequence of the character’s thoughts and actions and feelings within the action of the play, I find I discover even more about the character and what he has to say.

2. What do you find to be the most helpful part of PCSC’s standard rehearsal process?

I really enjoy the very early rehearsals where we go through the script, consult different editions, talk about the relationships between the characters and what’s actually happening in a given scene. Going through and working out the scansion in the verse lines and those sort of Shakespeare – geek-y things.

3. What do you like to do for fun outside of theatre?

I am an avid sailor and sailboat-racing enthusiast. I race as often as I can in my Rebel – a somewhat traditional 16-foot one-design sloop which is also a great day-sailing boat. My son Soren says he prefers sailing on our Hobie 16 catamaran – I think because it’s just so much faster and more exciting – especially when it’s breezy. We do more day-sailing on the Hobie, mostly because there’s just less opportunity to race.

I am also a long-time rugby fanatic. I’m currently a referee and referee-coach/evaluator, but I’ve been involved in rugby either as player, coach, or referee for about 20 years now. I don’t play very often anymore – and when I do my body protests mightily the next day, but as we say, “It’s the pain that let’s you know that you’re alive.”

4. What is your day job? What do you want to be your day job?

I work for Distinctive Machine Corp. in Rockford, where I am the CAD/CAM/IS Manager. I’m a tool-maker by trade and qualified as a journeyman building plastic-injection molds. DMC builds metal-stamping dies, and I do CAD work and support the company’s computer systems that do computer-aided design and machining. I have often thought over the years that I would like to design and/or build boats. Especially wooden sailboats. They’re like pieces of art – beautiful and functional, and the building material lends them a sort of mysterious, magical quality – though I’d probably enjoy designing and building boats in modern materials too.

I think I’d like to be a professional actor too… not just making a little bit here and there at it and being referred to as, and being expected to behave and perform like one – but actually making a living at it. I’m not entirely sure I have the courage to be a struggling, starving artist at this stage of my life and I’ve got plenty of excuses for why I can’t – “There’s not enough opportunity in this area…”, I have a lot of other obligations, & etc. – and plenty of self-doubt… But then, “For the believer no proof is necessary – For the unbeliever, no proof is sufficient…”

5. What theatre plans do you have in the next couple months?

When Grand Valley Shakespeare Festival’s Richard III is finished I’ll get a little break and then start rehearsals for Pigeon Creek’s All’s Well That Ends Well that will hit Grand Rapids sometime in January. I hope to win a role in one of PCSC’s spring or summer tours, and of course there’ll be a few other local opportunities available too…

 

Sun 16 Sep 2012

In My Mind’s Eye #7

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This summer, PCSC has started a new means of gathering the inside scoop of our actors in their processes. In addition to the normal blog entries you read on here, there will also be a series of questions posed to our actors. Enjoy.

This week: Repertory Company Member, Elle M. Lucksted

*****

1. How do you typically go about preparing a Shakespearean character?

My character preparation involves reading and re-reading lines, paying attention to who my scene partners are and establishing connections with their characters. Developing a back-story–especially for less significant characters–helps create motivations for all of their actions. By that, I mean putting motivation behind every move (e.g.: why is my character walking away/toward this person at this moment?) Physical motivation, emotional motivation, whether the words my character speaks are sincere, sarcastic, flat, designed to pull a particular emotion out of my partner, etc. Specific to Shakespeare, of course, is prose/verse writing. If my character switches between the two throughout the play, you must pay strict attention to which style they speak with which characters and why.

2. What do you find to be the most helpful part of PCSC’s standard rehearsal process?

I have a feeling that this answer will be unanimous, but the most valuable part of Pigeon Creek’s rehearsals is the ensemble (Specifically the ensemble directing of shows, but I mean “ensemble” as in the entire process is team-based.) That means that as an actor, you get productive feedback from a lot of directions, but also that everyone contributes equally to create the final product and has the opportunity to have their voice heard in the process. Aside from that, PC spends a good deal of time working through the text before jumping into action. Beginning rehearsals often consist of read-throughs and partner line-work so that we can build and understand the words first and foremost, which is so important with Shakespeare.

3. What do you like to do for fun outside of theatre?

I like to travel, read, write, amateurly analyze politics (I run a political and a feminist blog), and stumble upon internet things. I’ll choose going out with friends or staying in with a movie depending on my mood.)

4. What is your day job? What do you want to be your day job?

I am a full-time student by day, supplemented by unpaid internships. I guess I would say my “job” is my current internship at my university’s Women’s Center. I am the undergraduate VAWA Grant intern (Violence Against Women Act) –a federal grant that funds projects and events for Domestic Violence Awareness month. If I were paid for this position, I could do it for the rest of my life. My ultimate dream-job is working in Human Rights or Social Work with domestic violence victims and survivors, which I will accomplish once I have my master’s degree down the road!

5. What theatre plans do you have in the next couple months?

Unfortunately, my acting plans have taken a backseat to my academics as of late (I’m a senior psychology major doing psychology and graduate school prep-type things.) But my internship with the Women’s Center will give exposure to some great theatrical involvement this fall. ReAct is an on-campus theatre troupe that promotes anti-violence through scene performances, so we’ll be working closely with them at times. We are also hosting a production of Remote Control, an interactive play designed to raise questions and encourage men (and women) to step into abuse-prevention roles. Besides that, I will be happily/nostalgically attending upcoming Pigeon Creek and Grand Valley performances to cheer on my friends and cast-mates.

 

Sat 8 Sep 2012

Imagine Being Charmian

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Claire Mahave as Charmian

Imagine being Charmian.

You’re steeped in rich culture, surrounded by opulence. Slaves and servants perform menial daily tasks, and you know your place and your mission in life. You are a servant yourself, but a special one. You are a handmaiden to a living goddess.

The center of your world, around which everything revolves, is Cleopatra. She is brilliant and charismatic, cunning and ambitious. She was born into power, lost it at times, but held on through her wits, her marital and sexual alliances, and, probably, fratricide. She is the first of her line of inbred royalty to learn the local language, and she is descended from Isis. She can keep you in luxury or beat you to death on a whim.

As Charmian, how do you feel about your life? You’ve known nothing, else, of course, unless you traveled to Rome with your mistress. But Egypt is cosmopolitan, and you certainly meet people who are different, who have entirely different worldviews, traditions, and beliefs. Do you ever question your life? Do you ever wonder who you would be under different circumstances? Would you change your life, and your death, if you could?

I am a second-waver. That is to say, I came of age during the time in which feminism was a wave that had not yet crested. (Did you know, for example, that the first marital rape law, which made it illegal for a husband to rape his wife, was not enacted until 1976?) By the time I was born, in 1970, it seemed to me to be generally accepted that women were equal and should get equal pay (though we still don’t, 40 years later.) I found out through the years that my assumption was not nationally held, let alone representational of the world at large.

I grew up devouring books and shifting my worldview accordingly with what new information I could absorb. I was an especial fan of historical fiction, and reading this genre gave me insight into just how much better life is for women in modern days, and I have always asked myself the questions I posed for Charmian. Who would I be, if I had been born in England in 1407? If I were a blonde, blue-eyed child in Hitler’s Germany, what choices would I have made? What character would I have formed in modern-day Ghana?

As an actress, it is not my job to judge characters or their choices. My focus needs to be on what makes people tick—what motivates them to act as they do and what shapes their thinking. Of particular interest to me is how women survived in unquestionably male-dominated times. Cleopatra was a queen in a time of kings and warfare, and she made her choices accordingly. Charmian survived in the same world, but with different paths to take.

It has been interesting to watch audiences react to the sensuality in our portrayal of Egypt; in this world, in this age, it is considered hedonistic and decadent. Because we are so close to our audience, we can hear every sharp intake of breath and see expressions of shock, disapproval, and titillation. But we modern Americans take options for granted and our freedom as a given. How different would life be for us a different time and place? How much of who we are is shaped by our surroundings?

Imagine Cleopatra had she been born in the United States in 1973 instead of 69 BC. What could she have done—this determined genius—in the modern world? How would her story be different?

 

Sat 1 Sep 2012

In My Mind’s Eye #6

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This summer, PCSC has started a new means of gathering the inside scoop of our actors in their processes. In addition to the normal blog entries you read on here, there will also be a series of questions posed to our actors. Enjoy.

This week: Chaz Russel Bratton (Eros, Philo, Proculeius, Taurus, Messenger) and Owen McIntee (Octavius Caesar/Demetrius/Guard) are on the docket for Antony and Cleopatra.

*****

1. How do you prepare a Shakespearean character?

Chaz: Research the time period, people, etc. If the character is based on a real person, research that person. Then, work the arc of the character through the show. Find out what your character is doing while off stage.

Owen: Research, research, research. Take clues from the text and run with them. Seek out input from my directors and fellow actors- they usually know a lot more than I do.

2. What thus far in rehearsal has been helpful?

Chaz: Having a director like Katherine is extremely helpful. So is getting to work with actors of such a high caliber.

Owen: The various exercises and text work Katherine supplied for us during the first few weeks of rehearsal were invaluable. Also, the encouragement to keep playing and trying new things has helped my character grow through the entire process.

3. What do you do for fun outside of theatre?

Chaz: Watch movies. I’m a huge cinephile.

Owen: I’m into movies, reading, and video games. Other than that I just enjoy spending time with my family, my girlfriend and my buddies!

4. What is your day job? What do you want to be your day job?

Chaz: During the show I sold knives and delivered pizzas. I’d love to be able to act as my day job.

Owen:Right now I work on campus at Aquinas as an office assistant. Ideally, the ultimate goal is to be able to support myself financially as an actor. Whatever I end up doing will be fine, so long as I continue to enjoy life.

5. What do you plan to do after this show?

Chaz: Keep acting! I’ll probably audition for Pigeon Creek again. Fingers crossed.

Owen: Finish school and graduate in the winter, move to Chicago and learn how to be an adult.

 

Wed 29 Aug 2012

The Asp-Clown

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Scott Lange as Enobarbus and the Clown

As you (our regular readers) have most likely observed, our most recent production of Antony and Cleopatra employs quite a bit of doubling. In our eleven person cast, only two actors (the title characters) are undoubled in the show. I play three roles in this show: Enobarbus (Antony’s loyal friend), a servant that helps to carry a dying Antony to Cleopatra, and the clown who delivers a deadly snake to Cleopatra. I spend the majority of the play as Enobarbus, but it is my performance as the clown that has gotten the most comments.

The clown is only in one scene, doesn’t stick around for too long, and really does nothing to further the plot. There are a number of characters in Shakespeare’s plays that serve this same role. The jailer in Cymbeline, the apothecary in Romeo and Juliet, and the porter in Macbeth are a few of them. A few other Pigeon Creek actors and I have a running joke that they are actually all the same person at different points in his life.

In most cases, the character is there to provide a moment of levity before the play takes a swift plunge to death and tragedy. There are some productions that tend to perform these characters in a serious manner, as though comedy and laughter have no place in a Shakespearean tragedy. I believe, instead, that the moments of comedy help to intensify the drama in the play. The dichotomy of comedy and tragedy butted up the one against the other makes the play all the more moving for the audience. Sure, we as an audience enjoy nonsensical comedy or intense drama quite a bit. But often the most potent and popular types of entertainment contain both forms. It’s a theme that is consistent with real life. We go to funerals not only to mourn, but to share joyous moments from the life of our departed loved one. We laugh at slapstick, black comedies, and jokes that are “funny because they are true.” Anyway, I felt that despite the clown’s appearance was brief, it was an important one.

Truthfully, the character started out ridiculous. He had a stooped walk, and gravely voice, and was filled with sexual innuendo. I was playing him as old and crotchety, with only little respect for the queen. It got a lot of laughs from the cast, which I enjoyed, but didn’t exactly seem to fit. One day in rehearsal I decided to try something the complete opposite of what I had been doing. I stilled his movements, made him young, and afraid of the queen. This got a different reaction from the cast, but still wasn’t quite right. The right interpretation for me was, like my tragic-comedy ramblings earlier, somewhere in-between. It is supposed to be funny. But it should be because of the situation, not me being silly. He is nervous because he is delivering the queen’s chosen implement of death, a poisonous asp. He stumbles over his words, makes accidental jokes, and is generally awkward around a woman that he is helping commit suicide. I hope that people think he is funny, but that the humor in that moment deepens the audience’s compassion and care for Cleopatra. The brief moment of levity accents the tragedy of a relationship that can still move those that witness it.

Also, we’ve been referring to him as the “asp-clown.” Now that’s comedy!

 

Fri 17 Aug 2012

The Challenge of Many Faces

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Joseph Valente as the Soothsayer, Menas, Scarus, Thyreus and Dercetas

One of the most difficult and rewarding tasks of an actor is taking a character off the page and creating a real, living, breathing, human being onstage with all the necessary depth and complexity. I have been given the great challenge and opportunity to go through this process with five distinctly different characters in Pigeon Creek’s summer production of Antony and Cleopatra. This being my third major production with Pigeon Creek, I was familiar with the routine challenges that come with playing Shakespeare, but found the sheer number of characters to be initially daunting, as it was essential to make each one unique and interesting in its own way. Fortunately I had great help and guidance from the direction of Katherine Mayberry, as well fantastic scene partners that gave me so much to play off of with each scene.

An actor playing multiple roles is nothing new to Shakespeare. In the Bard’s own time, it was common to have one performer bring several distinct characters to life. About twelve actors can provide enough cast to perform any of Shakespeare’s plays, and some works require even less than that. Antony and Cleopatra, being one of his longer and more intricate plays is ripe for ample doubling. Though some characters are only in a few scenes, their activities influence the plot and direction of the play enormously.

When approaching a role, I begin by working out the character’s backstory, first starting with the script’s given information, and then filling in the gaps with my own imagination and interpretation. Though this practice was certainly helpful to this production, I wanted to avoid becoming lost in the massive detail of years of background experience on five very different people. Thus to keep focused I made the center of my efforts to the simple question of why each character is included in the play, and what purpose they serve.

The Soothsayer is a mysterious fortune teller that appears early in the play warning both the queen’s handmaidens and Marc Antony that their futures are tainted with unfortunate happenings. A similar character appears in Julius Caesar warning the title character to “Beware the Ides of March.” The Soothsayer’s role in the story is to warn the characters of the coming storm, as well as to give the sense of impending doom and inevitability. With this purpose in mind I was able to find a character burdened with the weight of truth, and the humiliation of being regulated to entertainment and pageantry, even while holding such crucial information.

Menas the pirate is a brute that allies with Pompey against the triumvirate. His role in the text points out the folly of Pompey in trusting Caesar, which both mirrors and foreshadows Antony’s own downfall at the hands of Rome’s first emperor. Providing a background for Menas proved fun, as it is never fully revealed why he places his fortune and resources to Pompey. I decided that Menas could have once been a soldier under Pompey’s famous father who was defeated by Julius Caesar. His alliance to Pompey could very well be seen by him as a way to regain his former honor and position. Creating a character necessarily cynical, world-weary, and brutal proved to be very enjoyable.

If Menas is cynical and realistic, Scarus, a soldier in Antony’s army, is the direct opposite. Scarus sticks with Antony to the very end, his purpose being to demonstrate the vast power Antony once held as a member of the triumvirate, as well as showing how Antony’s demise affects the lives of every one of his followers, particularly the most loyal. Loyalty is central to Scarus’ character as he rants against Antony’s Egyptian follies in his first appearance, yet still decides to follow his master to the end. Paul Riopelle (Antony) helped me in the development of this character as he pointed out that Antony may even see something of his former self in this scrappy, young idealistic soldier.

Thyreus is an overconfident ambassador in Caesar’s inner circle, who is sent to attempt to drive a wedge between Cleopatra and Antony. Ironically Shakespeare uses the character to accomplish the opposite effect, as his actions pull the two title characters even closer together. His overconfidence in his own cunning and skill, proves his downfall, as he is outwitted by Cleopatra, and receives a severe beating at the hands of Antony as a result of his actions. Something tells me that Thyreus has a long history of outmaneuvering his opponents, which is why Caesar sends him to Egypt in the first place. Unfortunately for him his skills did not prove strong enough for this particular situation.

Dercetas is a guard in Antony’s army that is one of the last to defect to Caesar after finding Antony mortally wounded in a suicide attempt. Shakespeare uses the character as a vehicle to inform Caesar of Antony’s final demise, as well as to further emphasize the tragedy of such a swift downfall. Interestingly enough, Dercetas thoroughly praises Antony during his defection to Caesar indicating how hard the switch is for him, and how deeply his master’s downfall has hurt him. It was fascinating creating a character pragmatic enough to know when to quit, but still loyal enough to proclaim his former master’s greatness to the enemy he is defecting to!

All in all my experience with Antony and Cleopatra has been an exceptional learning experience, as it has given me five distinctly different characters to make my own. Not many other shows provide one with that much opportunity for creation. I am greatly enjoying myself on this production and wish to sincerely thank Katherine for her exceptional direction as well as my fellow actors for their great work that inspired me to work even harder to achieve the greatest truth in performance. I can honestly say this show boasts one of the most talented, hard-working casts I have ever had the pleasure of working with.

 

Sat 11 Aug 2012

Making creative choices with doubling

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Janna Rosenkranz as Varius/Octavia and Dolabella

One of the original practices that Pigeon Creek partakes in is doubling. In Antony and Cleopatra, I double six characters: a messenger, another messenger, Varius, Octavia, a soldier, and Dolabella. To make things a bit easier on myself I’ve made the first and second messenger and the soldier the same person, just during different time periods in his life. This works out for me because the play takes place over approximately ten years (the second Roman Triumvirate lasted from 43 BCE to 33 BCE). My named characters also change over time. I found this exercise particularly interesting as my characters are very rarely on stage and have only short speeches (as opposed to the last role I played with Pigeon Creeek – Boyet in Love’s Labours Lost, who doesn’t stop talking!).

What I decided to do is use Shakespeare’s treatment of the passage of time in the play as follows. Since we are looking at snapshots of events during that ten-year period, my characters have to age and change along the way and present that change in each scene they are in. For example, the first messenger in Act I, Scene i, is a young, middle-class Roman who came to Egypt with Antony. He does as he’s been taught. He had honor and duty to his betters and is slightly disgusted and disturbed by Antony’s behavior with Cleopatra. Egypt is like New York would be to a young man who grew up on a farm in Nebraska in the 1870s. (It helps that our Roman costumes are Victorian.) In the his second scene, he has become more confident, while remaining very loyal to Antony. As a solider, he has risen in the military ranks, and although he is in the midst of a very strange event, he shows maturity in the way he handles it.

We only see Varius twice and in one of his scenes he has no lines, but I also try to give him some more weight as a pirate in the second scene. Last in my male roster, Dolabella changes from his blind allegiance to Caesar to seeing how manipulative Caesar really is. At the end, he emotionally favors Cleopatra.

On the feminine side of my roster, Octavia is key to the action of the play and somebody who I could do real research on. In real life she lived with Antony for years and had two daughters with him. After he died she raised his children from his marriage with Fulvia and his relationship with Cleopatra along with her own children. My motivations for her are, as always, based on the text, but I’ve elaborated by giving her a more family-based loyalty. She is motivated by family honor. However, she has duties towards both her brother and husband and is truly torn between them. When Octavian tells her that Antony is with Cleopatra in Egypt instead of Athens, she is more upset because she, and therefore her family, has been humiliated, rather than because she has a great romantic love for Antony. Beforehand, she believes she can bring Antony and her brother together, as is her duty, but she is unsuccessful which is shameful to her.

I’m sure that a different actor would have a different way of managing these characters but as someone with a liner mind this works great for me and has given me a new insight into bringing Shakespeare to life!

 

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